Von Rittenheim had insisted upon going home to his cabin a few days before, since which time the old lady had missed him grievously. He was not yet strong enough to take the five-mile ride to Oakwood on his mule, and she had made the gander-pulling an excuse to go to his cabin to see how his housekeeping was progressing, and to take him for a drive.
"We don't have gander-pullings often now, since the law requires that the fowl shall be dead," she explained. "It demands less skill to break the poor thing's neck when it isn't writhing wildly."
"And it does not r-rouse the br-rutal desire to kill that seems to live in every one of us men. Will Miss Sydney be there?"
"Yes, she is going on horseback—"
"Ah!"
"—with John Wendell."
"Eh?"
"You didn't meet them—John and Katrina Wendell—when they were here in the spring. They went North again not long after you came to Oakwood."
"Oh, dear madam, I do so earnestly hope that my going to Oakwood did not depr-rive you of more welcome guests."
"Not the least in the world. They went back to New York to put the crown to a pretty romance."